Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued a statement on the sixth anniversary of the assault on Jericho prison and the Israeli kidnapping of the General Secretary of the PFLP and Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades.

The PFLP stated that Britain and the United States bear responsibility as well as the occupation for their coordination with the occupation both to imprison Comrade Sa’adat and then to support the kidnapping operation, which ended with the destruction of Jericho prison and the kidnapping of Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades, Majdi Rimawi, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Hamdi Qur’an and Basil al-Asmar, and Fouad Shoubaki.

Furthermore, the PFLP said that this crime must reveal the bankruptcy of those who rely on negotiations and their sponsors – that the occupation respects no agreement and the US and the UK bear responsibility for that very violation.

That six years later, the Palestinian Authority continues along the path of Oslo and negotiations makes clear that the PA has not learned the lessons of Jericho. Read the rest of this entry →

Some food for thought on this St. Patrick’s Day from Irish revolutionary Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. I post this because quite often people like me hear from Irish-North American folks that they know so much about national oppression because they Irish. However, the point is missed that while Irish people in Ireland are indeed nationally oppressed by the British, Irish folks over on this side of the Atlantic, when faced with discrimination from British settlers, were more than happy to shed their status as members of the colonized and adamantly join the settler-colonial game. However, comrade McAliskey, and other revolutionary internationalists from Ireland, have always understood this relationship and have known who their real comrades on this continent are.

I was not very long there until, like water, I found my own level. ‘My people’—the people who knew about oppression, discrimination, prejudice, poverty and the frustration and despair that they produce– were not Irish Americans. They were black, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos. And those who were supposed to be ‘my people’, the Irish Americans who knew about English misrule and the Famine and supported the civil rights movement at home, and knew that Partition and England were the cause of the problem, looked and sounded to me like Orangemen. They said exactly the same things about blacks that the loyalists said about us at home. In New York I was given the key to the city by the mayor, an honor not to be sneezed at. I gave it to the Black Panthers.”

Fidel Castro concluded in 1992: “I am absolutely opposed to any form of repression, contempt, scorn or discrimination with regard to homosexuals. It is a natural tendency and human that must simply be respected.”

The following article is by Leslie Feinberg. Leslie is a well known radical trans and queer activist in the United States, and ze has spent many years attempting to build LGBTQ solidarity with the people of Cuba and the Cuban Revolution. In this ze has actively fought against the all too common belief among both queers and non-queers in North America that Cuba is not a friend. Many believe that in Cuba homosexuality is condemned and queers, especially men, are sent to labor camps. In this article Leslie refutes this as propaganda and tells about the true history of this part of the Cuban Revolution.

Also be sure to check out hir book Rainbow Solidarity: In Defence of Cuba. It is a compilation of 25 articles about how the Cuban Revolution has worked to overturn prejudice against same-sex love from the colonial and imperial eras. This never-before-compiled information offers a factual vista on the trajectory of progress of the Cuban Revolution. It’s a must-read to understand the revolutionary process required to uproot anti-queer & trans oppression. Read the rest of this entry →